Seeking insight from other knowledgable laser folks. This isnt one of the DMS lasers.
Is this a focal height issue OR is the laser head moving causing the ghosting ? Is that the term you would call this. Other thoughts? Thanks in advance!
There’s only a few things that can cause this from what I’ve seen:
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lens or mirrors aren’t tightened all the way, and are shaking. I don’t think that’s the case here, usually the shadows would be pretty wobbly if that happened.
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a damaged, dirty, or wildly misaligned lens/mirror. This can frequently cause the laser beam to split/refract, leading to this effect.
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loose head unit. If the belts that are driving the head unit aren’t tensioned correctly, the overshoot at high speeds can cause this kind of shadowing. It’s pretty easy to test if this is the issue, run a small little circle on a slower speed/lower power and see if it makes a difference.
From the photo I would guess this is a case of number two. It could be damage or a bad smudge causing this (many laser manufacturers recommend cleaning these lenses a lot). There’s also a chance that the final alignment is a little bit off, so part of the beam is hitting the small hole in the head unit, and causing it to curve around it.
Focus could cause it but usually it would have to be pretty far out of focus to get that drastic of an effect… from what I’ve seen, focus usually just leads to a very very light shadowing not something that strong… But it’s also one of the easiest things to check for so, its worth testing.
What kind of laser is this/what power?
Edit: actually looking at the picture again, with the fact that it’s shadowing on both sides… Maybe it is the focus. It feels like it’s a really etch just for a focal issue, but without knowing material/power settings and the like, hard to be certain
It’s a 150w Laguna laser that I’m figuring out. It’s VERY almost identical to the Thunder, if not identical, with the exception the bed doesn’t move or is manual - I haven’t looked at it closer. I will be examining all your theories tomorrow, starting with the nozzle tightness.
Thank you for your thoughts.
Let me make some assumptions. I’m guessing this was a raster engraving. Then I will assume this is set up such that the text is lined up like a sheet of paper so that the x axis is on the bottom. Then to me this is not ghosting, it is backlash in the x axis. You may need to tighten the x axis drive belt to remove the backlash. At least that is what I would check first since it looks perfectly aligned to the x axis.
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